I am addicted to beach hair. I used to purchase every beachy-waves formula on the market, when I had a disposable beauty income. Now, I’m a product hacker, reduced to rummaging around the kitchen, trying a different concoction every week until I forget what is in it.

I went over the ingredients many times; I looked each and every single one up; I pored over what I could put together that you could easily make at home.

Though there are some extra-special and extra-lovely ingredients in the version I’ll be making, you can substitute an oil of similar constitution of your choosing. It’s best to use oils that are liquid at room temperature here, since you will be shaking up this oily salt water mixture like a hair vinaigrette.

Here’s the gist of why JFBBOWSSTS (John Frieda Beach Blonde Ocean Waves Sea Salt Texturizing Styler) which will henceforth be referred to as Ocean Waves, was so damned awesome: it uses silicones as a delivery system to coat the hair with natural oils while using algae and salt-laced water to boost curl. It combines the effect of the assumed product in your hair before going in the ocean, the oils you should be using at the beach to condition while you are in the sun, as well as protect from the drying ocean salt. When this trifecta meets your hair, dreamy curls are usually the result. Even those with straighter hair will see a lot more texture after a few consecutive days of "beach" styling.

To do this at home without ordering $800 tubs of semi-viscous silicones is not quite as difficult as I thought. The hardest ingredient to find was meadowfoam seed oil, and I am VERY happy to have it on hand.

Another ingredient category that almost stumped me was preservatives. DMDM hydantoin? Whaaaaa? Butylcarbamate? There are MANY ingredients I can’t pronounce in here, and I’m not going to be purchasing any of those any time soon. I’m pretty sad that there is a formaldehyde preservative in the original precious, because that is one of my biggest eczema triggers. I suppose I will roll the dice once in awhile, but I really want to avoid things like that, or at least in large amounts.

I remembered one of my favorite product cocktail strategies back before I knew my coconut milk salt spray attempt would be an epic fail: add a small amount of an existing product into the mix. I often did this with some hair gel in a salt spray formula, but it didn’t occur to me that I was adding preservatives to the mix as well, albeit in a small amount (since I have previously explained to you that it is really best to make small amounts of DIY products for optimal freshness and to get better and faster at making them). So here’s the wildcard: I’m getting the silicones and preservatives, as well as a little bit of coconut oil from Organix Nourishing Coconut Milk Anti-Breakage Serum. This also helps with the coconut smell that I’m so obsessed with.

The oils used in the original Ocean Waves formula were chosen for a reason. Meadowfoam seed oil is quickly becoming much more widely used; it is a very stable oil, great for DIY use because it actually extends the shelf life of the products it is used in. Jojoba oil is also a great hair and skin oil, as it is one of the closest dupes to actual human sebum. Though none of this will dissolve in the mineral water, it will disperse evenly when you shake it, and will be close to the OG.

Follow this recipe, and sub where you like--this is all about proportions and then shaking before use.